to be absolute—
by scarrlette
Summary: "His shoulders were stiff, and the gold in his eyes had degenerated to the yellow coat of enamel on the rings in those stupid little vending machines in grocery stores that she used to always beg her mom 25 cents for. "


_i don`t know exactly what it is that i`ve written, but it does go somewhere after this, perhaps i`ll continue it.  
__thanks._

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"Clary.." He began, but the words were exhausting. Like every letter took every ounce of willpower to form in his mouth, and her name, just her name, it was like he had written a symphony in a sitting. His shoulders were stiff, and the gold in his eyes had degenerated to the yellow coat of enamel on the rings in those stupid little vending machines in grocery stores that she used to always beg her mom 25¢ for. That yellow didn`t meet her line of sight, and instead he considered the simple patterns laced into the worn out carpet as he leaned backwards cumbersomely against the side of the reading chair behind him without looking, because that`s how you know a place is home, right? You don`t have to look, it`s just there, and you know that it`s there, and maybe that doesn`t apply to just the furnishings of a library.

She stood by the stairs and held a book against her chest, her arms crossed like an x around the hefty thing. "I`m tired of this," Clary said, and the library was big, big and wide and sound bounced around a lot, yes, that`s why it felt like her words were so loud.

Jace blinked, but languidly, and maybe if she stood still enough and quiet enough for a minute, he would fall asleep, right there. The sadness in her chest almost made her want to let it happen. "You`re the one who wanted... all this, wanted to keep it." He made it sound as if had she not chosen to continue her training, there would have been even a semblance of a chance to still be with him.

"We never do anything _just for us_," she divulged. Her palms were sweaty against the leather cover of the book, and the library was quiet in a silent way, but also in the way two people are quiet when the words they are saying are going nowhere. That silence settled into the room like dust, like it was really there, frozen into the air, hardened into glass, and if she moved she could shatter it, but Jace.. Jace was so transparent, so ethereal, that when he straightened himself from the chair and began to move in her direction, it was as if _he_ was the intangible being, rather than the silence.

He came to a stop when he was passing in front of her, even though she had the full intentions of letting him go wherever it seemed he had decided to go, because they had not slept for two days, and she was too tired to lose her temper, and he was far too tired to even put the effort into his arrogance. That carpet really must`ve been fascinating. The curve of his back looked strained, like his bones were the only support his tired soul had left. He finally looked at her, and the slouch his collapsing shoulders induced gave the effect that he was looking up at her, despite his height. "Maybe we don`t have any time for _us_-," his hand ran through his hair as he spoke, his voice was like the sound of the rain right before you fall asleep, "-because as much as we`d both selfishly _love_ to believe, the world doesn`t gravitate around _us_." His tone held insistent, quiet, but insistent.

Her book now felt like a Kevlar vest, one clearly not strong enough for his words. Her heart hit at her ribs with a dull echo inside her, she was empty, and tired, so would there even really be anything for bullets to hit? Her mouth formed an uneven line, and her eyebrows furrowed upward in disheartenment. With such a sad expression on her face, she couldn`t keep eye contact with him. How could you, when the reason you are a burning forest inside can look at you with weary, detached eyes?

Now she _wanted_ him to leave. But more than that, she wanted to sleep. An argument between two people who were worn down to their shiny, bruised bones was not an argument at all, but rather two sad people very desperately trying to express what they feel with words they could not hear or touch.

Jace complied, already set in motion, towards the door, and the moment he stepped out, the hardened silence fell to floor in a display of great weight, and the library immediately felt several times larger than it had seconds before. The book she held had become a leaden ton, as had her heart, and her eyelids. Somehow, the distinction between all three things was lost to her now.

Placing the book onto a table, not having nearly enough sense to remember where she had gotten it, Clary stared down at the golden loops and mazes embossed into the hard surface, because this was all she knew of the book now. Whatever she had read of it before Jace had entered the room was gone and it would never come back. Lifting her hands delicately off the cover, she reached the door of the library, but she was shutting down, because one can only take so much pain and truth at a time, so the less than vivid recollections of reaching that door, and then her own bedroom were like checkpoints on a tape, but there was nothing in between, no images, just knowledge of having reached somewhere, but no true knowing of how it had happened, it was like sleepwalking awake.

Not even the icy blanket she laid on top of stirred her conscious, and the bobby pins in her hair, previously held back for easier reading purposes, pressed against her scalp when she laid her head down on the pillow. There was nothing she was aware of right now, not the penetrating lack of heat of the bed she lay fully-clothed on, not the white, white ceiling she stared at, not even if this was with certainty her own bed. Just simply that she had never been this tired before, tired like your lungs after you pull yourself through the surface of deep, deep water. Tired like your heart feels hollow, but your legs are so heavy. Tired like falling asleep with your eyes open and realizing that at one point, your consciousness left for better places, and you`ve become your dream, which is a nightmare.

Morning left her wondering if she`d even set foot in to the library at all.


End file.
